{"id":373,"date":"2008-12-22T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2008\/12\/22\/do-you-trust-the-firewall\/"},"modified":"2008-12-22T11:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T15:15:00","slug":"do-you-trust-the-firewall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2008\/12\/22\/do-you-trust-the-firewall\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you trust the firewall?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the years, underwriting credits (those non-commercial &#8220;ads&#8221; that are permissible on public radio) aired on National Public Radio and NCPR have occasionally drawn fire for various reasons.  Some listeners decried Walmart&#8217;s credits on NPR a couple years ago.  A couple anti-wind farm folks questioned my independence in reporting on wind power when Maple Ridge wind farm was running credits on NCPR.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northcountrypublicradio.org\/support\/under1.html#guide\">You can read our underwriting guidelines here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The latest debate concerns the Department of Homeland Security&#8217;s credits airing these days on NPR.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/ombudsman\/2008\/11\/should_npr_run_funding_credits.html\">Read NPR&#8217;s Ombusman&#8217;s summary of the situation here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As a reporter, these situations don&#8217;t worry me so much.  Not because I dismiss the importance of journalistic ethics, independence, and potential conflict of interest.  These are of the highest priority here at NCPR and at NPR. <\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t get worried because I know the firewall between the news and underwriting departments is strong and impermeable.  Sandy Demarest, our underwriting director, works independently on selling credits.  Our on-air announcers (myself included) read them as they appear on the daily program log.  I know nothing about the terms or lengths of the contracts (except <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northcountrypublicradio.org\/support\/under1.html#rates\">what the published rates are<\/a>) or when the credits will air (except when I see them on the log).  It would never occur to me to think twice about reporting a story because its target was a station underwriter.  And I can&#8217;t imagine Sandy approaching anyone in news about coverage of a particular story, or about treatment of a particular issues.  Jennifer Ludden, NPR&#8217;s immigration correspondent had a similar reaction:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Having this funding credit on air would have no bearing on how I handled future stories,&#8221; said Ludden. &#8220;I certainly would have no idea if this particular credit would air in the same show or segment as one of my pieces. More to the point, I would have no problem continuing to report on the program&#8217;s shortcomings, and the controversy over it.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Still, perception matters.  Do you believe in NCPR&#8217;s, and NPR&#8217;s, firewall between news and sales?  I hope so.  It&#8217;s the bedrock firmament that makes independent journalism possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; David<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the years, underwriting credits (those non-commercial &#8220;ads&#8221; that are permissible on public radio) aired [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}